


First Fantasy NaNoWriMo: 8: The Felon Wind.

by SkiesOverTokyo



Series: FirstFan NaNoWriMo Drabbles [8]
Category: First Fantasy (Webcomic)
Genre: Badass, Gun Violence, Old West, Other, Wild West, cormac mccarthy-ish, influenced by Blood Meridian, overly influenced by Earth's "Hex-Or Printing in the Infernal Method", sorta trying a few styles out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 21:09:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16563179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkiesOverTokyo/pseuds/SkiesOverTokyo
Summary: Attempt to write something Old-Westish in the FirstFan world. This may be the first complete mission that the nascent "Le Defile Noir" carry out as a complete group, not decided yet. Tried a few style imitations, particularly the stacatto prose of James Ellroy and the work of Cormac McCarthy (esp. Blood Meridian)Think of this little story being read to you by Sam Elliott, whilst American experimental rock band Earth play in the background





	First Fantasy NaNoWriMo: 8: The Felon Wind.

They had swept into town like a sandstorm.  
All dust and fury, a thing to be weathered indoors rather than withstood out on the sun-fucked prairie.  
They’d arrived on the rails, stepped out into the light of a dawn that hadn’t seen true darkness in weeks, and trouble came off them like flies from carrioned plainbeast. The town closed up before they were on its outskirts.  
  
There were seven of them, armed to the teeth, a servant sword with no master, a gunslinger maimed and left for dead, a boy with age beyond age in his eyes and horns on his head. A woman who called herself knight, but bore no favour, a bard with no songs and fewer coins, a smith and healer and apothecary and an hundred different jobs run into one tired looking man who spoke less than he worked.  
  
Their commander, a youth barely out of his twenties, with the weight of leadership, and the heavier weight of a famous name, not that the latter carried any value out here in Hex, had strode over to the board by the well, hammered a poster up, and to the owners of two dozen unseen eyes, had proclaimed, in a surprisingly high voice that carried to the four corners of the little town, that they were looking for a man by the name of Railford.  
  
Railford, so they were soon told, had shot seven men, two elves, an orc and a dvarf on his one-man robbery of a goods train heading north from the Dvarven desert town of Rust Falls, crashed the train, taken two heavy bags of jewels worth, so the young man said, several times the value of this entire town. They’d been employed and sent out here by the Duke of this sunbleached province to capture Railford, alive if possible, and a substantial reward was promised to the person who turned him in, with smaller, but still worthy rewards.  
  
The mayor was the first to leave his house, marked out only because of its slightly better construction, and larger size. Hex was not entirely sure why it needed a Mayor-a town of two dozen souls could easily pack itself into his large parlour, if they didn’t mind standing, though the tavern, directly across the single street, was more often used for gatherings of the townsfolk, on  account of its roominess, and the alcohol being on tap being that little bit closer. Yet, Hex’s Mayor stepped out into the street, walked over and had a good look.  
  
Twenty-two sets of eyes watched him, joined by Old Man Washburn’s one eye, the other lost in a war, or a fight, or an accident. He never told the same story twice, and some wondered whether he himself remembered. They watched the Mayor step over to the young man in charge, him with the famous father, watched him gesture at the poster.  
What was special about the poster? Wanted bills came and went, as quarries were turned in, bounties raised or lowered, and the townsfolk paid them no more attention than any other message on it. Why did the town of Hex have that board either? Any news or call for help or bounty could surely go on the large wall behind Mister Jim (it was _always Mister, not Mr or Master_ ) Daniels’ bartaps where everyone could see it, or be communicated from person to person  
Yet, Rogers, the shopkeeper and, with no-one else wanting the job, Hex’s lawman-he never used the S-word to refer to himself, walked out, wandered over, hat pulled low against the sun, entering the shade next to the Mayor. He too examined the poster, and this time, twenty-two pairs of ears, Old Man Washburn being well equipped in this department, heard Rogers exclaim  
“But, youn’ man, there’s no picture. How are we s’posed to know what he looks like?”  
A murmur ran between buildings as the townsfolk took in the news.  
  
_Unusual_. _Them posters always have them no-gooders on it…_  
_What game were this boy and his troop trying to pay?_  
_A printing error, my dear, nothing more. I’m sure these people will be able to find him, they’re professionals after all._  
 _Daddy, what if he doesn’t have a face?_  
  
They took up residence in the bar, shoving two tables together and placing a map that only just failed to cover both atop. The town watched, from their seats, and from the door, and from the street, being as the bar was partly open to it. The young man took charge, sending the horned child, a fearful little creature that made several of the residences make the sign of the One Dragon as he passed, for fear of the demon’s power, and the tall ronin who spoke no Common, on a patrol of the town’s perimeter, allotting the other four watch shifts stretching through the pale night and into the next morning, when the demon and ronin would make another pass, and so on.  
  
Rogers, and to the Mayor’s surprise, Old Man Washburn offered their assistance, but the young man waved it away with a smile  
“We’ve got it handled, Mister Mayor. We won’t inconvenience you or your town for long.”  
The Mayor beamed with pride at the young man’s politeness, and at being called “Mister Mayor”, and the town wondered exactly why they had a Mayor who did nothing but preside over things. A matter for after Railford was flushed out like a spring rabbit, however. If they remembered.  
  
The one memory that all of the townsfolk shared, however, in the weeks after this strange incident, was how big the desert around them was. How small Hex was, tucked away on one corner of the map, far from the regional capital, forgotten, marooned among the desert sands like a becalmed ship, connected to the rest of the world by a single silvery line stretching south to north.  
  
Without the railway, and the work that Hex did as a stopover for drivers, and a depot for coal and water, it would have sunk away into the sandy depths years ago, its people swept away to the four corners of the empire. It frightened them, the map, and it was its departure  that they looked forward to, rather than that of its owners, mismatched and odd a group as they were.  


* * *

  
Three days passed slowly, sun creeping overhead as the patrols rotated the two short leagues that was the outskirts of the town. The young man, who the town had quickly learned was one Matias D’Appia, the son of a mercenary who a couple of the townspeople vaguely recognised from the newspapers that arrived in town two days old, had added a patrol from one end of the main street to the other, and then the second street, so that the patrol cut a figure of eight around the town first one way, then the other.  
“Just in case.”  
  
On the third day, the town began to relax. These newcomers weren’t so bad, drank with the best of them, brought news from their travels back and forth across the empire, and, even in the case of the devil boy, were thoroughly decent folks, making an honest coin from honest work. A weird looking bunch, but the town was no different. Toasts to everything from Mister D’Appia to the beer of Jim Daniels to the railways to the Mayor’s mayoral sash, which he wore around his Stetson, were made and drunk to.  
  
On the fourth day, Railford surfaced.  
They weren’t sure how he’d managed to do it, but in the three and a half days Matias D’Appia had been in town, he and his six had managed not only to get to know the entire population, from little Mikey Daniels, Jim’s son by a woman he only remembered from a locket he fished from his shirt when he was very drunk, and usually crying, to the aged pastor, Joshua, whose knowledge of Hex stretched back fifty summers, but map the entire town, their usual movements, and spot that twenty four individual little lives were, in fact, twenty three.  
  
Out in the graveyard, in the dead of the pale third night, with the pastor carefully reeling off a name at every simple wooden post, they’d discovered a freshly cut grave, hidden by newly shovelled sand, someone trying to make it look like years had passed. From this, and the map that D’appia carried with himself everywhere, each of the houses carefully marked off with residents and their hours of work, rest and sleep, the house nearest the station remained unmarked.  
  
In fact it _was_ the station, belonging to Elkshire, the man who kept a careful ledger of the passing trains, their cargo, and fuel, ensuring that there was enough coal and water up and down the line, and who inspected the trains that stopped in the station overnight, before they carried on in the morning. A few spadesful later, and the unfamiliar face of Elkshire emerged, the priest making the sign of the One Dragon over him.  
  
Elkshire, honestly, had been the best person, in a twisted way, to kill. He ate alone, rarely ventured into Hex proper, and his work kept people from noting his absence until the next train stopped at the station, which could be days or even weeks away. The story now lay clear. Railford had set off down the track from the crash site, buying time with the wreckage, reached Hex before the bounty hunters did, found the quiet little station, found Elkshire. A struggle. Elkshire had been…  
  
Strangled.  
  
Moved under cover of darkness, dumped in a shallow grave, days or even a couple of weeks ago. No way for a man, quiet enough as he was, to go. A coffin would be arranged with the station down the line, and transported up, Hex having no coffin maker-or indeed trees-of its own.  
  
Railford had taken his place, carried on the job, until the next train did an overnight stop, then he’d make his getaway. That was, by a coincidence, the fourth day the mercenaries would be here. Railford needed to move and Matias D’appia and his band knew it.  
  
They had him trapped. And so, the stage was set for what was, in the days and weeks to come, the most exciting day in Hex’s history

* * *

  
It began simply.  
  
D’Appia wandered up to the station, hat borrowed off the gunwoman-Blondie-low on his head, her poncho over his smaller frame.  
Took a look at the timetable. Made a show of not finding what he wanted.  
Knocked on the door of the station.  
Head popped out, took a look.  
Railford. A month’s stubble turned to beard in places, short shaved head in the Dvarven style, borrowed clothes of a dead man on. Teeth like desert floor, yellow and cracked.  
No, he didn’t know of any sundown train that passed through. Only the stop-n-go.   
D’Appia admitted he knew the lingo well, probably checked Elkshire’s books to step into his shoes the better.  
  
Nodded, turned.  
Made to walk back to Hex.  
Let the poncho flutter in the little breeze under Railford-Elkshire’s porch.  
Sword at his belt, _badge_ at his belt, borrowed from Rogers.  
“Sy-co-logical warfare” he’d explained to Rogers. “Scare him, make him act”

  
Door slammed like a gunshot.  
Gunshot, whizzing cross-track, inches off the forehead of the mercenary.  
Now Matias ran, Blondie parked on a rooftop a hundred paces back, edge of town, covering fire.  
Railford would have to come around to the back window to fire, and then he’d be in range and in scope.  
The wall exploded. Most of the house exploded with it. Cheap wood flying in all directions except Matias D’Appia’s, shingle with it.  
Railford stepped out into the debris, cocked his revolver, hand glowing.  
  
A Mage.  
Worse, a mage with a gun.  
Worse, a mage with a gun, with a good steady hand.  
The first bullet missed, he barely twitched his hand with the recoil.  
Chambered the next, aimed, fired in one smooth movement of the wrist and hand.  
  
In dodging it, Matias tripped, fell  
Lay dazed in the dirt, as chaos exploded around him.  
Mifune, the ronin, pelted across dusty street like a hero of old, picked up a sheet of corrugated metal.  
Improvised.  
Railford saw a moving target, one with more threat than a downed kid.  
Bullet ricochet, through the top of the well, tiles everywhere, terracotta dust in oiled-back black hair, but he kept moving.  
  
Chambered  
Aimed  
Fired  
Missed entirely  
Nervous.  
  
Blondie moved, skidding down the roof, reloading as she went  
Landed, pointed, aimed, fired  
Railford took the hit in the shoulder,  
No gun in that hand, held his gunhand against it  
Glowed  
He kept going, unhurried  
“You won’t get me”  
The only words the town ever heard from the murderer living inside their little town, unseen and unheard, like a parasite inside the unwitting host of Hex.  
  
Matias rose  
Red with desert, redder with blood.  
Sword hand swinging, eyes like fire.  
Chambered.  
Aimed.  
Click.  
Chambered  
Aimed  
Click.  
Chambered. Aimed. Click. Chambered. Chambered and aimed and. Click. Chamberedaimedclickchamberedaimedclick.  
  
A normal revolver holds six bullets. Railford’s was no exception.  
Matias swung, flat, looking to stun. Railford swung too.  
A scream of pain.  
Hot, sharp gunsight dragged down pale skin, missing D’appia’s eye by a finger’s breadth.  
A beat later, the flat connected with the side of Railford’s head. He went down harder, even as Matias sank into the sand, holding the side of his face, biting back searing agony as though a brave face would undo the damage.  
  
And yet he rose, bloodied but unbent.  
Turned to Railford, the felon’s broken arm and bullet wound leaving him powerless to stop the vengeful young mercenary.  
Fishing in his longcoat.  
Piece of paper came out  
“Railford James Jones, you are hereby under arrest for eleven”  
  
He corrected himself, and the piece of paper  
“ _Twelve_ counts of murder, one count of destruction of Grand Imperial Mail Service Property; namely, one train, seven goodsvans, said train’s tender, and guardsvan, plus one hundred and twentyfive feet of track, the theft of one double-pound of semiprecious stones, and one double pound of uncut rubies. Additionally, impersonation of an employee of the Grand Imperial Mail Service.”  
  
“Whatcha gonna do about it, kid? You think I can’t cast with a couple of flesh wounds. Better run. Tell…you what. You were fun. I’ll give you…five seconds.”  
The thin tan jacket he was wearing fell open to reveal.  
Oh gods.  
No wonder he’d barely fought. He wasn’t going alive. Had no intention of going alive.  
He ran.  
Railford watched him go, counted down from five to one

  
A click of his fingers.  
  
The explosion destroyed every window in Hex, much, despite his feigned worry, to the silent delight of Rogers.  
Matias, face bandaged, and limping, ears ringing from the explosion, and with an ashen look on his face, found a ruby embedded in a plank wall, and pocketed it. They found a couple of Railford’s fingers the other side of the tracks, beyond the shattered remnant of the Station Office, in a perfectly apposite “fuck-you” of a “V”  
  


* * *

   
The seven, with the pieces of their quarry in a small leather bag proffered by the Mayor, left town on the next train, a week after their arrival, slipping out of Hex at first light.  
And for a while, there was the buzz of excitement in Hex, the story replayed and replayed, changing subtly from teller to teller, as it passed back and forth, till D’appia’s duel with the crazed gunman became the thing of complex trick-shots, and mid-street showdowns and a borrowed pistol from the Mayor, the coffin ordered by D’appia either for himself or Railford, not for the sadly forgotten edge of town Elkshire.  
  
Elkshire was buried properly two days after the seven left, and his replacement, for their own safety, worked out of a house that little closer to town, and who, despite a strict daytime work ethic, quickly became a regular at the bar. The tale grew tall, and began to spread down the track, together with another odd little rumour-that, from time to time, precious stones could be found, not just on the edge of Hex, but a few miles out of town, the dust blowing off rusted and buried carriages to reveal riches beyond a treasure hunter’s wildest dreams.  
  
So Hex grew, became a haven for the hunters, and on a dark winter’s night, the sun setting over the desert, and the little city of tents that stretched between Hex’s station and main street, now bustling with strangers among the familiar faces, a train pulled into the station, now a regular stop.  
  
Among the crowds that exited the station came a boy in a too-big hand-me-down coat, with a girl a head taller, dressed all in black.  
“This is the place?”  
“This is the place.”  
“If this is another hair-brained get-rich quick plot…”  
"Hey, when have I ever let you down...?"  
"Last week."  
"Hey, that wasn't my fault!"  
And together, still arguing they walked into Hex.


End file.
